A couple weeks ago I was contacted by Lionsgate's PR guy and was asked if I'd be interested in reviewing the dvd for Speed Racer The Next Generation: The Beginnig. So of course I said yes. If you read my review of the film (www.comicvine.com/speed-racer/43340/news/&newsId=947), you already know I'm a huge Speed Racer film. This wasn't known to them. So I think it goes without saying that I would be pretty picky when it comes to a new Speed Racer cartoon. I don't know if any of you saw or remeber The New Adventures of Speed Racer back in 1993. It was not good. The Mach 5 was blue for one thing. It didn't even look anything like the original. Everything was updated. I could only watch a couple episodes before I bailed on it. Then there was Speed Racer X on Nickelodeon in 2002. It was on for such a short time, I didn't even know it existed.
As I waited for Lionsgate to send me the dvd, I did see some images from the show. I'll be honest, my heart sank a little. On the one hand, I was pleased that it wasn't going to try to re-do Speed Racer like the '93 version but for some reason the chins on a couple characters seemed a little bothersome to me.
"Speed" and his brother, X
Here's they synopsis:
Speed Racer The Next Generation: The Beginning (Lionsgate) builds on the adventures of the original series by focusing on Speed's orphaned son as he juggles school life at the Racing Academy while uncovering secrets behind his father's disappearance. The new chapter of Speed Racer utilizes a cutting-edge style of animation inspired by the original series, while incorporating topical storylines like the pursuit of a car built with a gasless engine. The movie features Peter Fernandez (as Headmaster Spritle) - the voice of Speed Racer in the classic TV series and the man responsible for the lyrics of original Speed Racer theme song. The DVD (out May 6th) includes an interactive racing game and the “Creating The Next Speed Racer” featurette.
Speed Racer The Next Generation: The Beginning sets up and launches the new animated half-hour TV series which airs Fridays at 7pm ET on Nicktoons Network; and also coincides with the Warner Bros. live-action feature film which hits theatres on May 9th.
The dvd finally arrived earlier this week. I watched it this morning with my four year old daughter since she absolutely loved the movie (and finally saw the original cartoon last week for her first time).
The dvd starts out with some trailers for Next Avengers (due in August), the originalSpeed Racer dvds (I already own them), and another volume of TMNT. Once the start menu appears, you're hit with an updated, punkish cover of the Speed Racer theme. To me, that was good. I do enjoy a good cover, as long as it isn't just a complete cover. If you're going to cover a song, give it your own interpretation to change it up a little. So that was cool. The opening was okay. What made it good in my eyes was that the yellow and red checkered "flag" was used along with the Mach 5's "M" logo. Again, don't try to completely re-invent and ignore the original cartoon.
The story? A boy named Speed (yes, that's his name) arrives at the Racing Academy where Speed Racer's younger brother Spridle (not so young anymore) is the headmaster. As he gets off the bus, he immediately meets the school "bullies," twins Jared and Jesse and daughter of the school's major donater, Annalise. With them is big time young racer, X, who is the son of the Speed Racer. X isn't as much of a jerk as the others...yet. They question and tease Speed on his name and the fact that he doesn't have his own car.
Soon Speed meets his roommate, Connor, a genius at mechanics but not so great as a racer. Connor is a huge Speed Racer fan. His part of his room is plastered with Speed Racer paraphernalia (very nice touch, images of the original Speed) and he has even built a robotic chimp named (you guessed it) Chim Chim. Speed also meets Lucy, a nice and helpful fellow student.
When asked about his name and parents, Speed says he grew up in an orphanage. All that was left with him was a strange key and a red bandana. In a trial race, Speed uses a signature move of the original Speed Racer. This upsets X, especially when Speed says he doesn't know how he learned it. X accuses him of stealing his dad's move. Spridle is impressed. He even shows pity on young Speed over the fact that he doesn't have a car. He allows Speed (and Connor) to go into the salvage yard and scrape together pieces to build another car. Once their searching, Speed's key begins to glow and he is able to find pieces to the original Mach 5!
Eventually Spridle is conviced that Speed really is his brother's son. He knew that after X was born and before he disappeared, he placed his lesser known infant son in an orphanage to protect him. Shortly, Speed Racer was gone and no one knew what happened. At first X isn't too keen over this discover but later is able to come to terms with it.
Without giving away too much more, there are "evil forces" out to get young Speed and his new car, the Mach 6. You can check out the further adventures Fridays on Nick Toons (7 pm Eastern).
My opinion? I can give it my blessings. The show has started airing already. I set my dvr to record the episodes. I have to admit, I am curious about these characters now. What did happen to the original Speed Racer? Is he still alive? What about Racer X? So basically I am hooked. More so, when we finished watching it, I asked my daughter what she thought. Thumbs up or thumbs down? She said thumbs up. She liked the racing parts and loved the new Chim Chim.
The character designs started growing on me. It's a different style but then who wants to watch the same exact thing you see on other shows? I still think the eyes are a little off but you can tell they're going for the look of the original anime style. That's fine. The voice acting was good. It all flowed smoothly. My daughter liked the nasally voice of Connor. She was immitating him when he talked. Cool bit of trivia, Peter Fernandez, the voice of Spirdle also worked on the original Speed Racer. The race scenes are partly computer animated. They do look cool but sometimes can get a little...distracting when the scene flips back and forth from the cars to the drivers. You're going back and forth from computer animation to the normal. Other than that, the scenes are pretty cool. As far as the look, I don't know if it was because I watched the dvd on my Blu-ray player on a high def television but it did look really sharp. Nice clarity and vibrant colors. So whether or not that enhanced the viewing, you can find out for yourself when you watch it this Friday.
There are some extras on the dvd also. There's a Making Of feature, a Virtual Track Racing Game (makes sense after you watch it), bios on the characters, and 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround along with English and Spanish subtitles. The dvd runs 66 minutes. I believe it cost about 14 bucks or so.
So I would recommend checking out the dvd and watching the show. I'm not a completely crazy about the animation but you get used to it and sucked into the storyline. They did a good job overall with it. This hardcore Speed Racer fan is not disappointed.
I know, I know. You're probably seeing this and saying, "You actually saw this movie?" For some reason, it seems the "cool" thing to do is to say how bad this movie is going to be. I'm not really sure why that is. When I first heard about a live action movie being made, of course I was skeptical. Hollywood is really big on the nostalgia wagon lately. People have a love for Speed Racer so it made sense. I wasn't sure how a live action would be. I was concerned over it turing out to be a mess. I wasn't too crazy when I saw the first images and trailers. But I thought regardless, I was going to see.
The first reason, for the site. There have been a few Speed Racer comics so I felt I owed it to you people to see it and let you know how it is.
The second reason, I had a huge love for the cartoon as a kid.
The cartoon first came out in Japan as Mahha GoGoGo in 1967. That was before my time. Growing up, my older brother and I had this really cool UHF channel in our area that showed the cartoon. We loved it. We didn't get many Japanese cartoons but could see that this was different than the usual Flinstones or Scooby-Doo. The Mach V was what it was all about. It was the ultimate car that every kid wanted to have when they grew up. We could only dream about seeing a real-life version. Even from the opening credits we knew it was different. I mean a car gets knocked off the track and explodes. Sure we had Looney Tunes explosions but this was something else entirely.
A live action movie directed by the Wachowski Brothers. I loved the first Matrix but wasn't overly thrilled with 2 or 3. Then the reports of a rated G movie made my stomache sink further. Turns out it made it to PG so I felt a little better.
I saw the movie with my wife and daughter. I already knew my wife wouldn't dig all the CG in the movie but we knew our girl would go probably go for it. How was it?
First of all, you have to go into the movie with the proper mindset. Forget everyone that's trying to "act cool" and say how bad it is when they haven't even seen it. This is a movie base on a cartoon. You've seen the crazy stuff that the cars do in the trailer. Just accept that. It's not supposed to be real. It also has that Dick Tracy (the movie) feel with all the bright colors. Don't hold that against Speed Racer. Bottom line. I liked it. A lot.
You can take the fact that I loved the cartoon either way. It doesn't mean I'm going to automatically love a movie version. If anything, I'm going to be more critical. The Wachowski Brothers did a great job of capturing the feel of Speed's entire world. Is there a lot of CG? Are there so many colors that your eyes sometimes feel like a kid in a candy store? Yes to both. Do the all car scenes look real? Not always. That's besides the point. It's a movie.
It was very faithful to the original characters. Speed is a kid that simply wants to drive. Fast. He has his family and there's the mysterious (and ultra cool) Racer X in the wings. You even have other characters like Snake Oiler and Inspetor Detector. The cars are accurate along with all the crazy and cool gadgets (with a couple tweaks). The movie got pretty intense at times. My little girl was on the edge of her seat (she's almost five). I could see that maybe all the craziness of the CG and multitude of colors might be a bit much (like for my wife). I enjoyed it all. Also true to the cartoon, we got some pretty cool fight scenes, both in cars and out! Fighting with cars, what a concept.
Is it a family film? Sort of. The sense of family is a strong theme in the movie. It's shown that Speed has a great caring family that supports him and he will do anything for them also. Some of the movie might not have been completely appropriate for my little girl but there were so many other parts that made up for it. She was cracking up non-stop during the credits with all the scenes of Chim-Chim. She was even singing along with the theme song at the end even though she hadn't heard it before (I've been holding back showing her my Speed Racer DVDs). On our way home she asked me if there was going to be another Speed Racer movie. I have to say that I do hope so. If nothing else, I'll even take a Racer X movie. That'd be pretty bad-ass.
So is this movie for you? It just depends. It's not a masterpiece type of film. It's not meant to be. It's pure entertainment. The acting and story were great. I was not disapointed with the movie. I wouldn't mind seeing it again. I will definitely be getting it on Blu-ray when it comes out. That's another thing. If you have the chance, see the movie at a theatre that has digital projectors. My neighborhood theatre has the DLP projectors. It's the only way I can watch movies now. I can't stand the splice marks or break in audio you get from the old-fashioned film projectors. A movie with these visuals should be seen through a digital projector.
It may not be an award-winning film but who cares. It was 135 minutes of pure adrenaline filled action.
I have a bad feeling about this movie from what I've heard so far. At least they haven't ruined the Mach V.
[Andy and Larry Wachowski] grew up on the popular 1960s Japanese cartoon about the adventures of a racing family — and its pet chimpanzee, Chim Chim.
"The TV show was the brothers' introduction to Japanese animation," says Joel Silver, a friend of the press-shy Wachowskis and producer of Racer and the Matrix films. "They fell in love with the genre. They said they'd been making R-rated movies their whole lives and wanted to do something their nephews and nieces could watch."
The film, Silver says, will have a "retro future" look and will center on Speed (Hirsch) trying to make a name for himself in the racing world despite the efforts of corporate giants to foil his career. The film also stars Christina Ricci as girlfriend Trixie and Matthew Fox as Speed's older brother, Racer X.
The Mach 5 will be placed on a crane and most effects will be computer-generated.
One real effect, though: Chim Chim.
"They're using a real monkey," Hirsch says. "Just don't call him that. He's a chimpanzee. He gets upset if you call him a monkey."
We've all heard the rumors for a live action Speed Racer movie for years. There's been so many actors linked to it and it just never happened. Well you may have heard that the Wachowski Brothers are behind that. Emile Hirsch will be Speed. He's done some movies and tv. Christina Ricci's has been cast as Trixie for some reason. Now according to imdb.com and firstshowing.net, Jack Shepard (known in real life as Matthew Fox) has been cast as Racer X. imdb.com also lists Susan Sarandon as Mom and John Goodman as Pops!
I'm not sure how I feel about this. The biggest downer is that it looks like it'll be rated G. Shooting starts in Berlin in June with a May 9, 2008 release date.
